Thursday 19 November 2009 17.05 EST
First published on Thursday 19 November 2009 17.05 EST

To everyone's surprise the ceremony began on time, the president walking up a stained, blotchy red carpet to the sound of a rough brass band and thumping drums. Looking immaculate, as he always does, Hamid Karzai's striped green silk Uzbek cloak stood out in the cold sunshine of a Kabul winter's morning. Even his dress was calculated: items from around the country assembled in a show of national unity.

What followed was part splendid, part shabby and awkward for everyone. An event to be endured not necessarily enjoyed. "Sober not triumphant," said David Miliband, the foreign secretary, after the inauguration.

Afghan eyes darted around the long hall to see who was invited and who was not. Western officials sat judging whether the president had said enough about a less corrupt future to excuse the disgrace of his rigged re-election.The verdict was that he had, just about, passed the test. He mostly stuck to the script demanded by the western powers whose representatives sat in the front row at the president's feet as he spoke.

His language about corruption was expected – "the ministers of Afghanistan must possess integrity" – though it said much about the degraded state of the government that such a banal statement could be taken as progress. The west will now want to hold him to the promise. "Deeds, not words," became the catchphrase of the day.

But Karzai went further than some had predicted. He said he wanted security control of Afghanistan within five years. He also called for full reconciliation among its people.

In Helmand province, at least, such things are still distant dreams.

Today's event was an edgy affair in a city sealed off for the day against a feared insurgent attack that did not materialise. Any merchant trying to enter Kabul was turned away and the airport was shut. The declaration of a public holiday kept people indoors; the streets were quiet, some Afghans at least following the presidential speech as it was covered, Dimbleby-style, by a discussion panel on state television.

The event mattered at least as much to western powers who have thrown billions, and many lives, into Afghanistan and need a return on their investment.

David Miliband is fitted for a microphone before speaking with reporters after attending the inauguration ceremony for the Afghan president yesterday. Photograph: Maya Alleruzzo/AP

In the hall Miliband, wearing headphones for simultaneous translation, sat to the side, his fingers on his lips. Hillary Clinton looked regal, outshining everyone apart from Karzai. Before the president arrived everyone wanted a word: Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, and the Afghan women's minister circled her. America's decision on troop numbers matters more than anything else here.

A couple of comic moments broke the mood: the wobbly Pashto of the two vice-presidents – both former jihad leaders from the north – as they were being sworn in and the late arrival of the United Arab Emirates foreign minister midway through Karzai's speech, when every seat, but the president's, was full. He broke into English to direct the minister to his own prominent position on the front row, "you can even sit there permanently".

Karzai seemed oblivious to the tension, though he must have been aware of it after an outspoken 90-minute session with Clinton the night before the ceremony. Her message: buck up your act.

But in the morning the Salam Khana Palace was full of feigned politeness.

It was striking the president paid tribute to the sacrifices of US soldiers, but not British ones. Despite recent heavy casualties in Helmand, he lumped Britain in with the rest of the EU, before naming Canada and Australia. It might not have been meant as a snub, but some might take it as such.

As at a wedding, the guest list said a lot. Sitting in the second row was General Dostum, a military commander briefly exiled from Kabul with a reputation for viciousness even in a room of tough military men. His presence in a Karzai cabinet – yet to be announced – might prove a problem for the west. The defence minister, General Abdul Rahim Wardak, whose congeniality belies his role in the destruction of Kabul in 1992, introduced the president and organised the event. Ashraf Ghani, the former finance minister and defeated presidential candidate, was there too. So was Asif Zardari, the Pakistani president, a sign of improved relations.

But there were striking absences. Two opposition figures, Burhanuddin Rabbani, and Abdullah Abdullah – beaten by Karzai for the presidency in a contest that can now described by the west as legitimate only because the latter pulled out – were missing.

"It was a great sight to see all the tribes, a great gathering of the clans," Miliband said afterwards – the huge diversity of faces also underlining Afghanistan's unwanted importance to the world.

The event would have been striking if only for the variety of headgear: flat felt hats, turbans, military caps. But it mattered for much more than that: a moment if not of hope, then at least of possibility. Miliband reported one Afghan cabinet minister telling him "the next five years will define the next 100 in Afghanistan".Today, , at least, in a sealed city, it felt like that might be true.